Before Minna can go to school, she needs a winter coat. The Quilting Mothers offer to make her a coat from scraps of quilting cloth, and Minna carefully chooses the pieces that have the best stories behind them. When the new coat is ready, Minna proudly wears it to school, only to be faced with her classmates' jeers of "Rag-Coat! Rag-Coat!" But it is Minna's coat with its stories and memories, and Minna's own thoughtful part in its creation, that allow her to bring friendship to Sharing Day, making her coat the warmest one of all.